Shadows Exist if Only for the Light
by emmywade
Summary: After The Last Jedi, taking a deeper look into what it means to be linked by the Force even after Snook has died. It's what I've been playing around with from the original piece No Light Without Dark
1. Alone with his thoughts

_I decided to go ahead and try to write what I had been putting together. This is the "before" to the short one shot No Light Without Dark and will tell the lead up to the story. It may even include that scene. Or I may clean it up a bit as I noticed a bit of redundancy. I will also try to include what will happen after._

 _I am not a regular writer. As I have work and a family I write when I can and post when it gets done. Today was an odd day as I had a lot more time to myself than I normally do. But when the feeling hits, the feeling hits and you'll get an update as soon as I get finished. Sorry it won't be regular, but I promise as soon as I get hit with inspiration you'll get a new chapter._

 _Again, bear with me, I'm still shaking off the decades old rust of not writing so it probably isn't that great and a bit redundant and boring. But I'm trying! Love to every star wars fan out there!_

* * *

It drove him to an aching distraction. Kylo threw down his helmet and stared out the window into the black space beyond. He barely registered the shattering crash. Rey's eyes, dark, earnest, somehow full of yearning and burning with anger, seared into his soul. Whatever door Snoke had opened remained, breaking his will at every turn.

"Must you look at me that way," he muttered, his long lean fingers sifting through his hair. Her expression did not change. Her eyes narrowed on him. Her lips pursed. She was more than displeased to see him. To realise she could not control their connection any better than he could.

Back to silence. Words between them meant nothing now. She had refused him. Refused everything he had offered her. Walked away from a life they could have shared. Red hot anger coursed through his veins. Crackling in the air like dry timber in flames. A low snapping sound began to filter through the haze of fury. Surprised, he looked down, finding his fingers curled into the metal casing he had leaned against. The titanium bolts popped like a child's toy, peeling back the layers of silver showing the glittery colours of wires beneath. "Shit."

" _You need to learn to control that temper."_ Her voice was soft, a purr in his ear. He tried to block out the surge in his stomach. The pull in his body. _"Even a_ _D_ _ark_ _L_ _ord must have some basic control over himself, one would imagine."_

She sounded so damn smug. Taunting. Refreshingly cool, calm, tantalisingly sweet. "Go away."

" _I wish."_ She sounded as irritated as he felt and it soothed him. He was surprised when a laugh escaped him. Echoing in his empty room. Then, as suddenly as she had been there, she was gone. The sleeping quarter around him emptier now. Old bitter bile seeped back into his body, poisoning the good mood that tried to force itself upon him. Kylo turned away from the bleak black space ahead of him.

"Rey," he said, trying her name out on his tongue. It tasted familiar and exotic. Forbidden and exquisitely sweet. Something his father would have warned him to stay away from when he was young and too impressionable to know better than to listen to the old man.

A sudden flash of pain branded itself across Kylo's heart, a white hot wound. The memory of a warm yet cantankerous face. Laughing, jet lagged eyes. That damnable smirk and know-it-all grin.

Han, a better rogue than father.

The crackling intensified, the air crisp with hatred. Hatred at Han. Hatred at himself. It consumed Kylo, his pale, smooth skin turning blistered red. The fire was real. The scorching passion of his thoughts burning his clothes from his body until he was nude. His body bleeding crimson red in silent, crying rivers.

" _Stop Ben! Stop! You're killing yourself!"_

The panicked cry came from no where and everywhere. As fresh as dew and just as sweet. It slid over the fevered flesh, soothing him. Calming. His fists unclenched. His eyes opened to find _her_ sitting on his bed. Rey's dark, expressive eyes wide with alarm. "Don't call me that."

" _I'll call you whatever I want,"_ her tone was supercilious even in her alarm and he smiled despite himself. "I thought I finally got rid of you."

" _If I could mercifully make this stop, I would."_ She lifted her chin haughtily, her eyes pinned to his. Her hands clamped tightly in her lap as her gaze finally betrayed her and she looked down at his naked form. Her cheeks grew violently blush, almost as red as he had been only moments before. _"You may want to find new clothes."_ She sounded so prim, so proper, but there was a note of something there. Something Kylo couldn't quite read.

Smirking, he turned away, his nude form lean and once again pale and imperfectly perfect in the cool blue lights. "And you, Innocent One, may want to close your eyes."

End Chapter One


	2. A heavy burden

_With each subsequent chapter I want to give a bit of insight to each persons thoughts. It won't always go back and forth, sometimes it may have both characters in one, sometimes it may be Kylo for several, or Rey for several. But I wanted to get across that each chapter may be seen through a different lens. And when that happens I will try to make sure that it's as clear as possible. I will also try to keep chapters short for those of you who read on mobile. I know with super long chapters my mobile device doesn't always handle them well._

 _One more update, I have a fairly serious abscess that I hope the dentist will see me about today. I haven't slept or eaten in a few days because, well, my mouth is all swollen and I am in so much pain I can barely breathe. So Chapter 3 may be delayed a bit. I have it mapped out in my head, but if they can't see me today I may be contacting 111 to try to find an emergency dentist in my area. And that's always a bit of a pain. Anyway, thanks to everyone who is following!_

* * *

The low hum of people buzzed around Rey as she blinked away the image of a very nude Kylo. Pulling gently at her hair, she shook out the short, dark locks and tried to remember where she was before the visions of Kylo's body on fire had swam before her eyes. The searing pain of his burning flesh fraying her nerves as she watched the blisters crack open, blood weeping down his body.

Yet he had stood there still as a statue. As if unfeeling the fiery rage that was consuming him. When her own clothes began to smoulder she screamed out for him. Tearing him away from whatever thoughts had brought on the inferno.

"You don't have to save the universe on your own," a voice teased from the doorway.

Distractedly she looked up catching Finn's warm smile. How long had he been standing there? How long had he been waiting for her to acknowledge him? "Am I trying to do that too much," she inquired earnestly.

"No," he gave her a quick smile, relieving her some. Kylo's body faded from her mind. Awkwardly her body sagged in a defeated vexation. It seemed to want more than she was willing to give it. "Are you coming to dinner? Rose is finally moving about again. I thought we'd all sit together."

It was sweet, she noticed, how eager he was for her to like Rose. As if Rey's opinion meant something. No matter how many times she told him she was a nobody orphan from a nothing desert rock, he'd come back he was just a numbered slave from the First Order and friends were friends no matter where you found them. It was wonderful in most ways, heavy in others. A weight of responsibility that was more than saving the galaxy.

Saving a friend meant so, so much more.

 _Friends_ , she thought, looking up at Finn's open, honest face. Sometimes honest face, she amended. At one time such a foreign word to her. Something she would have given all the rain on Jakku, something she had technically never really seen, just to have one person to call friend. Now she possibly had several. Maybe more than several. And they were counting on her to be the good. The light. The Force.

She was the last Jedi. She was the resistance's hope. And it terrified her. As much as Kylo pulled at her with every unwanted intrusion, every adoring person who looked up to her made her feel more out of place, more alone than she ever had been on Jakku. Only BB8 gave her solace, and if she was truthful, the silent times she watched Kylo pace in his rooms. A panther in a cage, as trapped as she was.

"Soon," she said, slipping her fingers anxiously through her hair, pulling herself from the pitiful thoughts. "Soon I think. I wanted to check with Poe about some ideas I had. And," she paused, choking on the word a bit. It felt unwise to use the General's given name in front of Finn, though she had given her leave to since they had arrived at their new base of operations. "Leia. I wanted to run the idea by Poe and Leia before I headed to dinner."

With a flick of his eyebrow, Finn let her know just what he thought of that. "I see. Well, I shall leave you to your important state business."

Glaring, she tied her hair back once more and smoothed out her clothes. "Funny. Har." Over his shoulder people milled about, going this way and that. Rebuilding everything they had lost. And they had lost so much. A pang of guilt hit her hard in the stomach. If only she had not surrendered herself to Kylo. If only she had been there to help stop the destruction instead. "I'll meet up with you two after, yeah?"

"Yeah," he nodded his agreement. "And don't go running off on some important trip while I'm at dinner. You have a habit of disappearing on me."

Shrugging, she turned up her grin. "What can I say, scavengers are good at that when need be."

"You're not a scavenger any longer Rey," he said soberly. His eyes found hers, heavy with the weight of the world on their shoulders. On her shoulders. It cooled her blood. "You're a hero."

Disappearing as quickly as he had appeared, his presence sucked the air from the room. From her lungs. She slumped against the wall, her head leaning back against the cool metal. "I don't want to be a hero."

 _"Isn't that true of us all?"_


	3. Writer Update

Hi everyone!

I wanted to give a quick update on why there hasn't been a Chapter 3 yet. You may remember at the beginning of Chapter 2 I mentioned I had an abscess in my tooth and I was going to contact the dentist. Well, my dentist saw me she had to put me on some pretty strong antibiotics to bring down the infection that had worked its way into my jaw. I'm on my last day of antibiotics today. The swelling has finally, blessedly, gone down and the pain is back at a manageable place. Thank goodness.

I have an appointment on Thursday to have this tooth that continues to cause problems removed and hopefully that will mean no more infections or abscesses. However, because the pain has gone down, I'm hoping to get back to writing by Tuesday, after the last of the pills have gone.

I definitely would have waited to start publishing this story if I had realised I'd have a random medical emergency in the middle of it. So I apologise.

Also, to everyone who has been commenting and reviewing, thank you so much. I would reply to your reviews but I will not lie, I do not know how to. Maybe I'm just finally getting to that age that I'm finally computer illiterate. So thank you to everyone that has reviewed, I read them all, including the one shot, and I really, really appreciate it. Everything makes me want to keep it going and I'll be super excited to get this tooth taken care of and get back to writing.

Thanks for understanding and all the feedback!

Cheers!

Emmy


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